Author Archives: Nicola Schaan

Breaking down social situations

When it comes to understanding a challenging social situation it can be helpful to slow down and break down what happened. I sometimes use this visual to help facilitate debriefing those moments. When I’m using this tool I often ask people to come up with one challenging situation and one situation that they handled well …

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Managing meltdowns for siblings

Autistic meltdowns can be hard for siblings. Here are some resources and suggestions. These suggestions are intended for school aged children. Understanding autism for siblings: Check out this resource from OAR that has a general ‘Autism, my sibling, and me‘ workbook for children 5-10 years old. It’s a free resource (for your first download). **First …

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Problematic Internet Use

Problematic Internet Use in Adolescents and Its Connection to ADHD and Autism **before getting into this I want to acknowledge that article outlines problematic internet use and does not consider the positives** Problematic internet use (PIU) in adolescents refers to the uncontrolled use of interactive screen media, resulting in negative consequences that affect an individual’s …

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Autistic shutdown with catatonia like features

Two articles are summarized with key points displayed Article: What I Wish You Knew: Insights on Burnout, Inertia, Meltdown, and Shutdown From Autistic Youth.Front Psychol. 2021 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8595127 FYI this was written in part by one of Canada’s lead researchers in autism – Melanie Penner, who did a presentation last month to Children’s Healthcare Canada on best …

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Autistic code-switching

Some consider autistic code-switching to be synonymous with autistic masking (Roberts, 2023) Others, such as Connor McClure, feel the terms are different. He has a great article outlining autistic masking and autistic code-switching My understanding, at this time, is both autistic masking and autistic code-switching have the potential to be adaptive, but code-switching is more …

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Masking

Read more about Autistic Women Who Mask Read more about Masking or camouflaging and Autistic experiences with masking Masking long term Petrolini V., Rodríguez-Armendariz E., Vicente A. (2023). Autistic camouflaging across the spectrum. New Ideas in Psychology 68 (100992), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2022.100992

Online vs in person school

Navigating what schooling options will work best is different for each child/family and may change over time. Deciding what works best is a personal choice and considering the pros and cons for each can be a useful exercise. General options: Autism BC has a great article summarizing the different options available for learners that I …

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